Outsides
by Keeper of Tomes
Summary: 5 of the 100 Challenge. A/D-"The thing with a perpetual smiler is that you can never really tell what the person is thinking."


**Outsides**

**Title: **Outsides**  
Author: **Keeper of Tomes**  
Song: **None**  
Summary: **5 of the 100 Challenge. SPOILERS FOR EP. 28 A/D-"The thing with a perpetual smiler is that you can never really tell what the person is thinking."**  
Words: **694**  
Pairing(s): **A/D

I did watch episode twenty eight, and I _did _see the massive amount of Aerrow and Dove mush. Looks like NerdCorps is wandering farther and farther from canon pairings. Good for them. By the way, did anyone else notice the almost...maniacal way Aerrow was like, "I can turn this terra into a sandbox!" I think war's really getting to him. So I'm happy because my theory about how they'd begin to become a little...scary...was correct. Yet sad. Meh.

So here's my response to said episode. Dove narrating.

PS: I stayed up real late and worked out the plots for all 100 Challenges. I'm insane.

* * *

Grandpapa jerked me home.

I must admit, the thought of that Wallop Junko's potato salad did scare me, but I would have liked to stay a little longer. To talk to him.

Now that I know for a fact that he and his team had nothing to do with all those silly thefts, I'm allowing myself to trust him again. Not that I ever really stopped in the first place. At least, that's what I'd like to think. To be perfectly honest, seeing him with those blue shards between his fingers made me waver in my confidence. Not in him, but in myself. In that gut feeling I'm always so proud of. In hindsight, I realize it was foolish of us to even consider the fact that the Storm Hawks could have done it. That _he_, the best and most honorable Sky Knight to ever fly these skies, would do that to us.

He's saved my life, and now, he's become my conscience. His hand on my back and his words telling me that I was right, all along.

Grandpapa says he's "such a nice boy," but that's after he realizes he didn't do anything. The thing about Grandpapa is that he's so quick to judge. And his opinions waver like leaves in October. I love him, but there's only so much of his ranting about cheese and Cyclonian swine a girl can take. Even a tough, Gale girl like me.

Aerrow...Well, he's tough, too. And independent. There aren't many differences between us. If anything, we're as alike as it can be. But I tell myself we're just friends, and that's all there is to it. Because I respect him too much to think of him as anything else. I don't know what he thinks about me. I guess he's as good as smiling through everything as the rest of his team is. Except that Merb, Strack...or whatever his name was. The thing with a perpetual smiler is that you can never really tell what the person is thinking.

And trust me, I always wonder what Aerrow's thinking.

He's a cryptic person.

A happy-go-lucky exterior hiding what I often believe could be something more. Many say that I'm the same way, you know? Maybe its true. Maybe I _am _just being tough to prove to the world that there's more to me than just a Gale girl with angular looks and thick accent. But in the end, the only person who really needs proving to is myself. Is he the same way? Is he fighting the greatest evils, standing up to the oldest traditions, to prove to himself that he can do it? Either that, or we're all just show-offs.

Am I being silly to think that maybe, he feels that he can't be human?

It's a time of war.

No one's allowed to be human.

But we'll break that rule, too, won't we, Aerrow? Just like we broke all the others.

The strangest part of this entire business is that the wondering, the asking I do about him, just draws me closer. I know that's wrong. Like I said: We're just friends. We're alllies. We fight for a cause greater than ourselves, and that means we have no time _for _ourselves, either.

Still. I like him. Perhaps more. What's not to love? Satisfying myself with being unsatisfied is as far as I'll get.

The children of Gale, they cluster around me when I get home and ask me, "What is he like? Aerrow, the Sky Knight?" And I tell them what they expect to hear: How he's brave, kind, and heroic. I tell them that he defeated the Dark Ace more than once and saved me from the clutches of those blasted Cyclonians. I tell them he's the best out there. And they all squeal, "We want to be like Aerrow! We want to be Sky Knights, too!"

Ah, yes, I tell them what they expect. But I keep a piece for myself.

I know that the words I gave them, that's the outside. The surface.

His insides?

Now, that. That is a mystery.

And I intend for it to stay that way.

* * *

I do LOVE reviews. Wink, wink.


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